Millennials make up one of the largest voter groups in the United States. Roughly 69.2 million millennials (ages 18-35) were eligible to vote in the 2016 election, according to Pew Research Center’s analysis of the U.S Census Bureau data. That is about 31% of the total votes in the United State. There is a problem, this large percentage of voters has one of the lowest voter turnout rates of the entire population. In 2012, only 46% of eligible millennials stated that they had voted, as shown by the Census report from that year. However, one group is working to reverse this trend. Inspire Colorado is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, that has set out to encourage young people to vote. There mission is “To transform young leader’s inspiration to action that improves their communities and strengthens our democracy.” Inspire Colorado has active students go around their school, and register students to vote.

Inspire Colorado gives students who want to get involved in politics the chance for leadership opportunities. This is one of the main goal of the organization.

In our our school, Aubrey Hall (11) is leading the charge to increase teen voter turnout. For the past week, Aubrey, Noah Sobeck (11) and Becca Heiniger (11) have been visiting all the senior advisory classes. They ask students to register to vote, Aubrey then helps them fill out the required forms. For those students who did not have their information with them, or are not old enough to vote, they were not left out. The Inspire Colorado team also gave out pledges to vote. In doing so, more students from the school will be able to vote in the next election.

The parent organization to Inspire Colorado is Inspire. Inspire has amassed 600 Inspire Leaders in just three years. These students come from seven states: Arizona, Colorado, Kentucky, Nevada, North Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia. 17 schools across those states have announced that 85% of their legible student body is now register to vote.

This remarkable achievement is do to the hard work of studies in schools, and their peers willingness to register to vote.

For more information on Inspire Colorado, you can visit their website, http://www.inspireus-co.org.